How Microsoft Pays Big Money To Smear Google In European Parliament

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Transparency – Rick Falkvinge

Transparency – Rick Falkvinge

I spent this week in the European Parliament in Brussels. One of the seminars I attended was advertised as being a seminar on privacy, big data, profiling, and online identities. As interesting as it sounded, it was anything but.

As our delegation from the Swedish Pirate Party entered the fancy hotel where the seminar (with a free lunch!) would be held, a well-dressed guy gave us a sloppy-looking printout of two pages in black and white, stapled together. This was unusual; given the obvious money involved in arranging the seminar, this stood out as below the par. Even more surprising that it was a hardcopy of a Telegraph article, Dark Forces Gunning For Google, that was over a year old.

Something here wasn’t right. Sort of like a subtly gnawing pebble in your shoe. What did Google have to do with this discussion in need for regulating governments’ appetite for citizen data and corporations abusing their privacy policies? Why did I just get that article handed to me?

While thinking, I grabbed a cup of tea and a couple of delicious Danish pastries from the buffet. The organizers were at least experienced enough to give the many attendees their free lunch after the seminar and panel.

The seminar was arranged by ICOMP, a nonsense thirteen-a-dozen-spun name like “Initiative for a Competitive Digital Market Blah Blah Meaning Give Us Money Please”. Your eyes glaze over and turn elsewhere at these silly spins after a while once you see them daily. But never mind the name, they come a dime a dozen. The seminar still had an interesting topic and a free lunch to boot, which would attract good people to network with on our topics.

My first hint of cause for alarm came as one of their head lobbyists sat down beside the four of us from the Swedish Pirate Party at second row center in the large room, and I overheard the following words from Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament, as the two were exchanging a few words waiting for the seminar to begin:

— So your primary source of funding is Microsoft, then?

The next ten minutes were nothing like I had ever experienced. It was the most shameless bashing of a single company with hints and allegations that I had ever seen. In practically every sentence of the keynote, which was exclusively about how bad Google was as a company, words were snuck into the overall flow that were designed to plant ungrounded ideas in the audience’s mind.

“…in Google’s latest privacy scandal…”

“…Google made the headlines again…”

“…allegations that Google has downranked relevant search results…” (as if Microsoft gets to determine what is relevant?)

It went on and on. This was not a seminar on privacy at all. This was Microsoft-funded Google-smearing, plain and simple, and I felt my blood starting to boil. No free lunch was worth sitting down and taking this kind of language designed to smear a competitor for profit. I would not be a part of this. My name does not get to be associated with this kind of drivel.

So I made the strongest act of disapproval conceivable in the European Parliament.

I walked out on a free luxury lunch.

I whispered to my three colleageues that I won’t be a part of this, and that I’ll see them after lunch if they want to stay. I stood up, furiously threw down the stack of smear papers on the seat, and silently walked straight out, realizing outside the seminar room that my three colleagues had followed me promptly – MEP Engström and his two in-house assistants. The whole PP delegation had walked out from second row center, in a way that nobody in the audience could possibly have missed this act of complete disapproval.

Seeing the only Member of European Parliament in the audience walked out of the seminar in that strong a disapproval, one of their head lobbyists rushed out after us trying to get us in a better mood. I was furious, and since we no longer needed to politely observe silence in the seminar room, I believe I made my impressions perfectly clear to him at the time – that I considered it audacious that Microsoft, a convicted monopolist, paid big money using a covert name to carpet bomb allegations of monopolistic behavior against a competitor in this manner – that the seminar had been thoroughly falsely advertised, and that I would not have my name associated with any part of it.

I told the lobbyist that I’d be happy to discuss privacy and regulation safeguarding civil liberties, both in terms of general concepts and specific regulation. However, and I believe I made this abundantly clear, I had no interest whatsoever in taking part in a seminar about Google that was funded by Microsoft.

The four of us went on to have a nice Vietnamese lunch instead, with a delicious spicy chicken soup, probably costing one-fourth of the meal we would have had on Microsoft’s tab.

In retrospect, I wish I had recorded this drivel. It was absolutely unbelievable what they intended to get away with.

A day later, I got a mail from the head lobbyist, saying we missed a good discussion towards the end as Google representatives came on stage to discuss. He had missed my entire point – that the seminar shouldn’t have been about Google in the first place if it was paid for by Microsoft and was advertised as a general discussion on big data, profiling, identity, and privacy. If Microsoft wants to discuss Google, at least have the honesty and transparency of doing so under its own name and under an upfront seminar description.

Microsoft, I worked for you once. My name is one of the ones printed in the 25th anniversary book. I’m happy I don’t anymore. This behavior is unworthy.

UPDATE: In the discussion thread on Hacker News about this article, an interesting parallel article in The Economist surfaced, crying the exact same kind of foul over Microsoft’s Googlesmearing: they have apparently been to a very similar seminar from the same Microsoft lobby front. They talk about the same deceptive advertising of the seminar, about how the same Pamela Jones Harbour as here got a free fire range against Google, and calls it “a textbook example of how not to lobby”.

UPDATE 2: I received a mail from the lobbyist who came out of the seminar after our delegation, pointing out that he did not choose to sit beside our delegation of four, but rather, we had chosen seats beside his pre-reserved seat. Fair enough. If the article gives another impression, I’m happy to let this stand corrected. That doesn’t detract from the main point of the article.

(See also The Embedded Citizen, which is the blog of Henrik “Hax” Alexandersson, who works as an assistant for MEP Engström in the European Parliament. Quite a fitting name for that kind of blog, actually. He also blogged in Swedish about it.)

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About The Author: Rick Falkvinge

Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. He has a tech entrepreneur background and loves whisky.

Well, I don’t understand what you are upset for?
Microsoft is one of many members of ICOMP and a member of 1000 other organizations as well I guess. ICOMP is negative to Google’s business practice. That’s the whole point of ICOMP and f they invited Google representatives to answer for that – sounds like an interesting and heated event. Maybe Microsoft is happy you don’t work for them anymore as well?

You really don’t get the point either, do you? Read the latter parts of the blog post again. Slowly. Perhaps even you will understand what the fuss is about. But I doubt it, since the purpose with your comment is clear. You’ve been busted. Now crawl back.

There is not fuss you idiot. You’re just a Microsoft hating Google fanboy whining like a crybaby. The fact of the matter is, Microsoft doesn’t have to smear Google. Google is a slimy, evil company, far worse than Microsoft ever was. Google’s entire business model is scum. They make their money off the buying and selling of people’s personal information for the purpose of ads. They don’t actually sell anything of value.

And Microsoft is? You should familiarize yourself to the countless abuses of Microsoft, the way they are constantly abusing the market, lying, commiting fraud, stealing, using every dirty trick in the book to maintain their gatekeeper position and keep competitors out of the market. They use software patents as weapons to attack free and open source software because they hate user freedom, they want to control your computer and riddle it with DRM and obnoxious “trusted computing” schemes that serve the copyright monopoly.

I think you’re either a misguided microsoft fanboy, or worse, a Microsoft astroturfer – a practice in which microsoft has provenly engaged in countless times.

For the same reason anyone would be upset if Ford announced a lunch meeting for “Meeting standards of Safety” and then spent the next hour smearing their biggest competitor with everything from racketeering through guilt-by-association to bank robbery (for providing getaway cars).

The phenomenon is called “Lying through your teeth” and is quite rightly upsetting to many.

What is even more remarkable is that you are upset primarily with the fact that someone is criticizing ICOMP. The truth hurts that bad, does it?

Microsoft is a rogue lobbyist group, like Big Tobacco and EXXON. Never align with them, sent their lobbyists in a plane home to Seattle. or put them in hand cuffs Prosecute their Brussels collaborateurs for treason against the European peoples and ban them from Parliament.

Europe to the Europeans! It’s sufficient when the US Trade representative can act as their mouthpiece. They should focus on corrupting DC and leave our affairs alone.

Microsoft/Apple’s attacks against open source free software Android is despicable, disgusting, that type of corporate behavior should be completely banned out of Europe, if European politicians aren’t totally corrupt they will soon pass some types of blanket disregard for all the bogus software and design patents, Microsoft/Apple should be ashamed of themselves, and I am sure a large portion of their employees, if they care about anything other than their paychecks, also are totally ashamed to work for such ridiculous Linux-suing enterprise.

Apple supports a number of copyleft projects, because they have to. They chose to profit from the work people released as copyleft, and so they are obliged to release their improvements.

Webkit is an especially good example of this: Apple took the khtml code from KDE, worked with it for half a year and only released binaries (which is a breach of the license of khtml) until they finally released their code in one big code-drop which the khtml folks had no chance of integrating cleanly.

That way Apple broke away from the community and created their own fork in a way which made sure that the KDE folks could not profit from Apples work without throwing out their own structure.

They were still obliged to keep the license, though, which enabled others to use Webkit – and essentially created a revolution in Webbrowser-development. But because they had to allow that, thanks to the copyleft license.

If you look at the way they treated the khtml developers, do you really think they would have released any code on that critical part of their OS, if they had not been forced to do so by the strong copyleft used by KDE?

Microsoft is a propaganda machine. Propaganda is job #1 at Microsoft. Ballmer is the minister of propaganda. Microsoft money can buy anyone – including heads of Euro Governments, British Governments, and the EU.

The TECH News you read on the internet is, for the most part, the “news” that Microsoft wants you to read. Microsoft operates a vast Black PR and propaganda apparatus to identify, discredit, and destroy “enemies”/competitors.
WARNING: Microsoft owns, controls, or strongly influences the following media outlets and technology properties: The TECH News you read on the internet is, for the most part, the “news” that Microsoft wants you to read.
(The writers are chosen/trained by Microsoft and/or substantial funding is from Microsoft.)

Perhaps something to consider, but then it really means that Microsoft does not know what even the people they are paying are doing. Perhaps both events were designed to be so over the top as to fail and paint Microsoft with a target, and done with their own money. The people at ICOMP may be so disgusted with what they are being forced to spew that they are letting people know in a very unsubtle manner.

I very much like your articles. This one in particular, I wish to share over Facebook. I consider myself rather tech-savy, but I have a question: Facebook just stalls when I try to post a link to this article on my wall, but if I post a youtube music video from “Big Media” (VEVO for example), it posts immediatly. Is this some form of censorship?

EDIT: by liking this article, it seems to have done the trick. Will I be forced to “like” all articles on this website that I wish to share?

You claim to be surprised Microsoft fund lobbying groups? Are you really not aware that all large firms fund lobbyists they agree with, and that Google in fact spend considerably more on lobbying than Microsoft?

I think your anger has less to do with lobbying and more to do with your dislike of Microsoft, because their position on IP is incompatible with yours. I am closer to Microsoft’s side than to yours, or Google’s, when it comes to IP law, so I am happy to see Microsoft going after Google. I have my doubts about whether corporate lobbying is in the public interest, but I would not express them by selectively attack Google’s lobbying efforts, whilst ignoring lobbyists I agree with.

I disagree with the Pirate Party, and I hope you fail. However, I still respect most parties I disagree with. When you claim to be upset about lobbying, but selectively complain about lobbying by those you happen to disagree with, I lose even respect for you. Either be honest enough to admit that it is Microsoft you are against, not lobbying, or devote the same energy against Google’s lobbying (you should actually devote more, since they spend more).

In that case, I look forward to reading your criticism of deceptive lobbying by anti-IP groups. Attempts to dress activities like downloading, scanning or distributing someone else’s intellectual property without permission in the clothing of free speech are particularly ugly. Promoting open source software as better for EU taxpayers, even in cases where it costs more because of non-licence costs like support, is another example, though not on the same level.

If you think that the copyright monopoly stands independent of freedom of speech, and that this is a red herring, then you’ve missed roughly the past ten years of debate on this topic. If you want to play the game, you need to understand the playing field.

There is a keynote giving the connection under “keynotes”, if you’re interested: “Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties”. I’ve given it in many venues.

But open source software IS better for the taxpayer (of EU, or any country). It IS cheaper, even WITH the support costs, because when your software is open source, you don’t have to rely on one monopolistic source for support – you can arrange a competition and hire the best offer to support and maintain your codebase. If your current tech support is too expensive, get a cheaper one! It’s open source, it lets you do that. Rather, no one can prevent you from doing that, as the code is open and anyone is free to modify it at will.

Practically the only entity who claims that open source software is more expensive than closed source is… well, Microsoft, and they simply spread lies for their own gain. The recent debacle in Münich is a good example. The city of Münich moved to open source, ditched windows and made their own Linux distro, and reported millions in savings. What does microsoft? Hires sketchy companies to fudge up numbers in an attempt to claim that windows would be cheaper… in short, they spread LIES. And you are swallowing them whole.

And here we see a typical pro-copyright troll setting up strawmen on the cheap again.

First of all, yes, every interest in the political sector does lobbying. Even if it’s just a case of sending an angry letter to an MEP. That isn’t the problem here.

The problem is that a lobbying group sets up an event titled in a manner which can not help but be misleading in order to perform a blatant attack on a direct competitor.

The closest synonymous event would be if General Motors held a public event on road safety and then went on to exclusively bash Toyota for making cheap cars.

In short, you are not only defending a practice of fraud and overt deception but also stating that it’s a deplorable practice to reveal fraud and deception. Your own “credibility” takes a rather large hit right there.

As regards the difference between Microsoft and google where it comes to IP law Google only differs in one significant respect – they create open-source programs whereas Microsoft does not. The only reasonable way you can disagree with Google’s stance on IP would be that they support open source.

And the only logical way you can disagree with that is by the SCO way of saying that open source is somehow dangerous to the marketplace at large and should be illegal. Which inescapably leads to the conclusion that you are in fact against the option of people creating code for everyones use.

Either fix your confusing arguments – or take a look at what you are really saying and implying.

You are all professional politicians, you are all aware off that there is no such thing as “a free lunch”, there is always someone paying the bill. So why are you so upset? You knew, or should have known, that the purpose of the “free lunch” was that one part wanted to influence you.
So what’s the surprise?
Why not listen to the message – that Google is a major threat to our right to personal integrity on the internet. Isn’t that what you pirates claim to protect?
But perhaps we can all learn a lesson from this, to raise the levels in political discussions and stop smearing “the competitors”. Even in blogs like this. Scary Devil Monestary for example should probably read the post once again….

“Why not listen to the message – that Google is a major threat to our right to personal integrity on the internet…”

You may perhaps forgive me if I doubt such a message coming from the company which sat ten years in court in order to get a smackdown for what amounted to an extortion-based monopolization attempt of the software market.

I.e. We pirates are fully aware of Google’s transgressions in the privacy sector – you may check up on the excellent articles created by our party leader raising exactly those issues.

That does not mean that prominent political figures should feel compelled to act with courteous restraint in the face of an outright smear campaign against one actor created by that actor’s main competitor without even a sign of protest.

As for smearing the competitors…well, I would say that my “competitors” do very well in smearing themselves. All I usually do is translate their implications into common language.

I should perhaps ask for some clarification – by “raising the level” of political discussion are you perhaps referring to “abstracting into obscurity”? If so then I would say that the level of political discussion actually needs to be lowered to where it can pass the bar of actually describing the real world.

If mr Falkvinge accepts a “free lunch” he also accepts that a party wants to influence him. That is his price for the lunch. Which is absolutely ok!
It is also absolutely ok for a public company to comment on other public companies wrong doings. Its not only ok to do so, it is a part of companies and individuals responsibility! Provided that the comments are done openly, correctly and between companies of equal size. In this case Microsoft was open with the fact that they paid the “free lunch” and their comments on Google was, to my understanding, factually correct.
Why should not Microsoft be allowed to criticize Google’s wrong doings in regards to the integrity of privacy on the net?
If Toyota was producing dangerous cars and GM knew that, would it not be GM’s responsibility to tell about it??

Smearing competitors in a blog? I claim that your response to “my choice” where you called him “a typical pro-copyright troll” was smearing. Calling a competitor “troll” is just not ok. It’s as simple as that.

If the advertised subject of the seminar was “Google is teh evil Satan incarnation”, you would have a point. Unfortunately, it was “privacy, big data, profiling, and online identities”, which doesn’t seem to have had much to do with its contents…

[…] groups like FairSearch. For example, Microsoft has put on a possess eventuality (both in DC and in Europe), and see this San Jose Mercury News list of Microsoft-supported influencers (the essay also tries […]

I love how the tool talks about Microsoft, but refuses to acknowledge that Google spends record amounts on lobbying, far more than Microsoft and Apple combined. Just another worthless Microsoft hating fanboy, whining like a b*tch.

Google is obviously not perfect nor innocent as they do lots of sketchy things re:privacy, but at least they’re an enabler instead of a gatekeeper, and at least they understand the value of internet and free communication, and at least they support free and open source software.

The same cannot be said of microsoft. Microsoft tries to attack the freedom of the internet at every turn. Microsoft attacks open source software constantly with weaponized software patents, using patent trolls as proxies. Microsoft gobbles up smaller companies – and even bigger ones, just see how they butchered Nokia.

Microsoft is constantly abusing the market, lying, commiting fraud, stealing, using every dirty trick in the book to maintain their gatekeeper position and keep competitors out of the market. They want to control your computer and riddle it with DRM and obnoxious “trusted computing” schemes that serve the copyright monopoly. Microsoft is the enemy, and the sooner the world is rid of Microsoft, the better.

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About The Author

Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. He has a tech entrepreneur background and loves whisky.